


Cleaning House

by Jain



Category: Sins of the Cities Series - K. J. Charles
Genre: Established Relationship, M/M, Table Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-27
Updated: 2019-07-27
Packaged: 2020-07-23 06:43:34
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,818
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20004001
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jain/pseuds/Jain
Summary: Nathaniel revisits the seance room, after Justin's return from Crowmarsh.





	Cleaning House

**Author's Note:**

  * For [nisiedraws](https://archiveofourown.org/users/nisiedraws/gifts).



Nathaniel knocked three times on the door and waited. He had a key in his pocket--Justin had given him one shortly after his return from Crowmarsh--but he wasn't certain whether Justin meant it for everyday use or only in emergencies. He didn't like the thought of startling Justin unawares, given the several violent intrusions into his home he'd suffered lately.

Justin pulled open the door and half-smiled, half-frowned to see him. "That key I gave you isn't just decorative, you know. Or is this an impromptu call and you've left it at home?"

Nathaniel grinned in response. Of course Justin would sail straight through his attempts at delicacy. "I didn't know if you'd want me barging in on you without warning," he said.

"Barge away," Justin replied and let Nathaniel into the house. He did lock the door behind them with what seemed to Nathaniel an excess of care, however; Justin was usually quick and dexterous, but now he turned the key with slow deliberation and listened to the click, and he tested the doorknob afterwards. "You're not here on business, are you?" he asked, not sounding particularly put out by the idea.

"No. I stopped in at Mark's to ask him about a story I'm working on, and when he mentioned that you'd asked for the day off, I thought I'd swing by to see if you wanted company. It's all right if you don't."

Justin shrugged. "I don't mind, but you'll be bored. Unless you brought some work with you?"

Nathaniel patted the coat pocket that held his little notebook. "I usually do. What is it you're up to, then?"

"Tidying." Justin grimaced expressively. "Sukey and Emma aren't due back for another week, and the house looks like a rubbish heap. I can't keep living like this until their return, and in any case they've had a difficult time lately. They shouldn't have to deal with putting an entire house to rights after what's happened to it."

"Why not pay somebody else to clean it?"

"Because it's filled to the brim with medium's tricks. I might be reformed, but I can't just give away all the trade secrets to any charwoman who steps through the door." He shook his head. "Tea?"

"Yes, all right." Nathaniel felt a bit as though he was being herded like a cow, but he didn't especially mind. For all Justin's flippant attitude, this self-imposed task must be wearing on him. Nathaniel could still remember the awful violence of the damage done to Justin's house, his possessions.

When they entered the kitchen, however, he saw that this one room at least had been wholly restored. Everything was neat and clean, a copper kettle was quickly filled by Justin and put on the hob, and...were those chair legs stacked next to the stove?

Justin followed his line of sight and said, "I've been working on the seance room. There's no salvaging the chairs, so I thought we could at least save on coal for a while."

"Clever."

"Are you hungry?" Justin asked.

Nathaniel shook his head. So they sat at the table and drank their tea, talking only of easy, friendly things: Mark's qualities as an employer (though nothing about his most recent case), and Sukey and Emma, and Nathaniel's friend Caroline whom the girls were staying with, and the school Caroline ran that Sukey was to attend.

Afterwards, Justin led the way to the seance room. The chair legs and backs were no longer in evidence, other than another dismantled stack next to the fireplace. But there was a neat pile of seats on the floor that Justin had apparently been taking apart. A more careful look let Nathaniel know that Justin wanted to save the brocade upholstery.

The rest of the room was disconcertingly empty. The crate of damaged slates and instruments was gone. There were no books left in the bookcase, and the screen was flush against the wall, leaving Justin's "cabinet" open. At least both bookcase and screen looked undamaged, and the lamps were unbroken. Apparently Frankie's anger hadn't encompassed _all_ of the furnishings.

Nathaniel at last let his attention fall on the seance table. It was heavily scarred, with an irregular dent in the very center where the candelabra used to sit before Frankie presumably stole it, but otherwise seemed in one piece. And Justin hadn't chopped it into firewood yet.

"I might sell that," Justin said. "It's not in good shape, but there are plenty of third-rate mediums in London who couldn't afford better."

"Does it still work?" Nathaniel asked. Before Justin could willfully misunderstand him as asking about the table's mystical properties, he clarified, "Whatever tricks you've built into it. They're not broken?"

"Nothing that can't be fixed," Justin said. He crossed the room abruptly and hopped onto the table, giving it a solid rap with his knuckles. "You wouldn't want some flimsy thing as a seance table. Makes people wonder if the table shaking is due to the medium pushing it up with his knees. This is built to last, though it's rather been through the wars."

Nathaniel nodded, his mouth suddenly dry, and Justin gave him a perceptive look. "Really? Even with the mystery all gone?"

He gestured around the room, which was indeed considerably less exotic than it had appeared on previous occasions Nathaniel had visited it. Everything open to view. The air cold and relatively unsmoky. The _curtains_ drawn for goodness' sake, letting in the grayish-yellow London sun to illuminate the room and Justin himself.

And yet... "The mystery's not all gone," Nathaniel managed hoarsely. How could it be, when Justin was sitting there before him with his astonishing gray eyes and even more astonishing mind, with his chequered past and interesting future? Nathaniel knew him better today than he had at any point in their whirlwind relationship, and that was enough to know how much he _didn't_ know and likely never would. Tony had been an open book; Justin, no matter how hard both of them tried, was at best an open book written in half-a-dozen languages, several of which Nathaniel couldn't read.

Justin's mouth ticked upwards into a smile. "Flatterer," he said fondly. And then his features shivered briefly and contorted into the familiar look of ecstasy. "Oh, Mr. Roy, the spirits want...they want..." He fell backwards onto his back, splayed across the table like the most perfectly obscene version of St. Sebastian ever painted.

Nathaniel crossed the room, drawn to him inexorably. In most of his early fantasies of Justin, he'd pictured bending him over the table to fuck him, fast and desperate and more than a bit harsh; in a few fantasies, Justin was the one to bend _him_ over. He'd never pictured this--Justin lying across the table with his arms crossed over his head and his legs dangling off the edge, offering himself up like a beautiful and vulnerable gift.

"Oh, God, Justin," he managed, and then he laid his hands on Justin and words were temporarily beyond him. He slid his palms up Justin's slim thighs and clasped them around his hips, watching with avid interest as Justin squirmed into his touch and the bulge of cock beneath fabric became more prominent.

Justin drew an audible breath. "Please, Mr. Roy. The spirits are burning inside me. I need your touch to satiate them." His voice trembled lightly. "I need you."

Any thoughts of holding back even longer to admire Justin's restless need dissipated in an instant. Nathaniel placed one hand on Justin's cock, stroking with his thumb, and let the other explore Justin's chest. Despite the chill room, Justin was down to his shirtsleeves--he must've gotten warm while taking apart furniture--and it was easy to locate Justin's hard little nipples and to tease them through the thin fabric.

"Please," Justin begged, writhing across the seance table like everything holy and sinful somehow distilled into a single quicksilver man. " _Please._ " He was flushed and gorgeous, and he looked even more desperate than Nathaniel felt...which was truly saying something. Perhaps he was as affected by the setting as Nathaniel was.

Nathaniel unfastened as many of Justin's buttons as he had the patience for, shoving aside cloth to get to the warm, soft skin beneath. He curled his right hand around Justin's cock to stroke it, caressed his body with the other until finally it ended up curved around Justin's cheek. He left it there, staring enraptured into Justin's transported face. The sound of skin on skin echoed through the room, and Justin's cock was hot and hard and perfect in Nathaniel's hand. And still Nathaniel kept gazing nowhere but at Justin's face as it went through all of the familiar expressions of half-agonized pleasure, followed at last by ecstasy and release.

The sound of Justin panting was very loud in the still, quiet room. Nathaniel retrieved a handkerchief from his pocket like a man in a dream, wiped his wet hand, and dropped the handkerchief carelessly to the floor. Then he tugged the still recovering Justin off the table and onto obviously shaky legs. "Sorry," he said, his voice rough, into Justin's hair as Justin clutched at him. "But I don't think that table will take both our weights, and I need..."

He didn't know quite how to finish that sentence. His cock was achingly hard and needed attention sooner rather than later, but even it was less insistent than the more fundamental need to have Justin _with him_ , pressed close and sharing Nathaniel's space rather than sprawled across the seance table like some distant, otherworldly creature.

Justin seemed to take the first meaning, however, as only a moment later Nathaniel felt a pleasure-lax hand cup his crotch. "Help me?" Justin asked.

A wholly pleasurable shiver ran down Nathaniel's spine at that plaintive, trusting plea. He took over undoing his trouser buttons and guided Justin's hand inside. Then he wrapped his hand around Justin's and the two of them worked together to pull him to orgasm. And when Nathaniel finally spent in a rush of shaky pleasure, Justin was recovered enough to hold him up in turn.

"My bedroom's still a mess," Justin said after another minute or two, when Nathaniel was feeling a bit steadier. "But we could repair to the sitting room instead, if you like."

Nathaniel did like. They had to separate to make their way to the next room, but his previous desperation to cling to Justin had banked itself. Though he did look forward to the idea of curling up with Justin on the sofa for a pleasant half-hour or so with greater than usual anticipation.

A thought occurred to him suddenly, and he laughed aloud. Justin quirked a quizzical eyebrow at him. "And you worried I might be bored," Nathaniel explained, and Justin barked a laugh as well, his entire face sparking with joy.


End file.
